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How to earn Avios and British Airways tier points when flying Emirates

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I’ve been running a few reference articles this month as news is thin on the ground, sharing some tips which new readers might not know about.

One of those ‘things you didn’t know you didn’t know’ is that it is possible to earn British Airways Avios points and tier points when flying with Emirates.

Emirates is an excellent choice for long-haul travel, especially in premium cabins on the A380 routes and especially if you live in the regions and would otherwise need to connect at Heathrow.  Here is my review of Emirates A380 First Class and here is my review of Emirates A380 Business Class.

One downside is Emirates Skywards.  It is a pretty feeble loyalty scheme with low earning rates and high redemption rates.  You can redeem for Arsenal VIP football tickets and for easyJet flights and for Heathrow Rewards credit but that is about it.

One alternative is crediting Emirates flights to Alaska Airlines as the two are partners.  Alaska is also a British Airways partner so you could redeem the miles for BA flights.  If you didn’t have enough, you could credit a few BA, Air France or KLM flights to Alaska to top up your account.

There is an alternative, though.

Qantas signed a major tie-up with Emirates four years ago.  A large number of Emirates flights now carry Qantas flight codes.  Qantas is also a member of the oneworld alliance alongside British Airways.

As long as your Emirates flight is booked under a Qantas (QF) flight number and not an Emirates (EK) flight number, you will receive Avios points when you fly.

I got my wife to try this out back in 2015.  She had to fly to Singapore for a conference and got herself routed London – Dubai – Singapore – Dubai – London.

This is what posted on ba.com:

imageedit_5_6059368811

As you can see, full long-haul tier points – 560 tier points for the return trip – and Avios were received.  Whilst it states that all four flights were ‘operated by Qantas’, this is not the case.  Three were on Emirates with only QF1 being on a Qantas aircraft.

To book an Emirates flight under the Qantas flight numbers, you should use the Qantas website to book.  Flights may be cheaper, the same or more expensive than booking via the Emirates site – it varies by service – so be careful.

Expedia and other third party sites may also show Emirates flights with Qantas flight numbers but you need to check this carefully before hitting the ‘buy’ button.

Not all Emirates routes carry a Qantas flight code unfortunately, but you should be OK to most places in Asia.  For corporate bookings, you need to carefully explain to your travel booking company what you want to do.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Emirates and Emirates Skywards

Comments (48)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Manuel says:
    23 Aug23 August 10:13

    Hello,

    Do you know if you will also get points + tier points credited to other one world partner? Eg Finnair Plus

    Thanks

    • Alan says:
      23 Aug23 August 20:22

      Yes – this isn’t specific to BA, just a function of using the QF code.

  • Wade says:
    23 Aug23 August 10:51

    Can confirm this worked for me over the new year – QF flight numbers, Qantas out and Emirates back – tier points and avios for both

  • Peter K says:
    23 Aug23 August 13:31

    For those travelling in economy you also need to be aware that on Qantas Metal flights you have to pay to pre-choose your seats but on Emirates you don’t.
    At £30 (IIRC) a segment from Man-Mel it’s not cheap.

  • Simon says:
    23 Aug23 August 14:26

    OT – RFS bookings: last couple of days I’ve had a “Error: There was a problem with your request, please try again later.” when trying to book a RFS – anyone else have this problem? Thanks

    • Simon says:
      23 Aug23 August 14:33

      It was a domestic RFS booking – seems a common problem looking at the “ba.com: technical issues tracker” thread on flyertalk. I shall call.

  • Aaron says:
    23 Aug23 August 14:48

    In a slightly different but similar topic:
    Crediting a Virgin America First flight (Booked from Alaska site) credited to Alaska or to British Airways?

  • James says:
    23 Aug23 August 15:43

    Hello, my Father has just got the Amex Gold card but will be spending two of the next three months in France where I understand it is hard to use the Amex 🙁
    Which UK supermarkets are the easiest to accumulate gift cards / vouchers to bring forward some future spending to ensure they can hit the target ?

    Also does anyone know which, if any, French supermarkets accept Amex ?

    Any other suggestions ?

    Thanks.

    • Alex W says:
      23 Aug23 August 16:32

      Tesco if you have any £x off £y spend vouchers. Non-tesco gift cards qualify for the discount.

    • johnny_c-l says:
      23 Aug23 August 16:54

      Morrisons used to offer some ‘More’ points when buying GCs, not sure if they still do. Otherwise it’s probably just a case of which retailers sell the brands you want to stock up on.

      If you want to keep your options open then you could buy Tesco gift cards now, then at a later stage use those to buy branded gift cards from Tesco for stores you want to use.

      • johnny_c-l says:
        23 Aug23 August 16:58

        …or you could use Amex via PayPal to buy Zeek credit and then convert into discount branded gift cards which would get you a better price if you’re interested in saving a few quid.

      • mark2 says:
        23 Aug23 August 17:54

        Morrison’s still give extra points on GC equivalent to 2.5% in vouchers, which you can use to buy more GC.

    • roberto says:
      23 Aug23 August 18:32

      Carrefour are a huge French supermarket chain and in Spain (where I shop) they take amex..

    • CDB says:
      23 Aug23 August 18:55

      I used Amex at Intermarche recently

    • SteveB says:
      23 Aug23 August 23:34

      Also Geant Casino… I used Amex at a couple of their hypermarkets last month.

    • Polly says:
      24 Aug24 August 07:25

      Actually James,
      Many major supermarkets take Amex in France, we use our Lloyd avios Amex everywhere there, even some restaurants accept it. Petrol stations no. But he would be paying the forex fee every time. Depends how quickly he wants to make his target. Are you a named 2nd cardholder. You could do the spend for him here in the uk tho.
      Yes, advance gift card spend is the way to go.

    • HAM76 says:
      30 Aug30 August 12:19

      You could simply top up your Amazon account, if you shop there. You then have ten years to spend the whole amount.

  • Neil Vernon says:
    23 Aug23 August 17:40

    I can confirm that this also worked for me multiple times.

    However, on one trip booked in business I used the Emirates First Lounge as I was EK Platinum at the time. I didn’t notice but when I handed over my card my Emirates number was entered into the booking replacing my BA number.

    It was only when the flights got credited to Emirates that I realised what had happened.

    I asked Emirates to reverse this and they refused but suggested I contact BA. I filled out a missing miles and tier points form and to my surprise they were credited very quickly and to my even bigger surprise the Emirates miles were not reversed.

    I’d not recommend this as a reliable process but might work for you in similar situations.

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